Management Perspectives

The survival and sustained success of any organisation depends on managers having a combination of leadership skills, good judgment based on knowledge and information, and a reasonable ability to steer a business in the right direction. The first step to become a really great manager is simply, common sense. This article focuses on some common-sense ideas on the subject of great management and helps readers understand the role of the team leader, acquire the skills needed to manage at a level of high performance and enable them to effectively communicate these responsibilities in order to create an environment of shared values and minimum conflict. Mostly managers are never formally trained to be managers. However, if we hold a management position, we were probably selected because we proved ourselves to be very skilled in the areas that we are now responsible for managing. For many, management is just something that’s added to the job description. Earlier, we were expected only to show up to work and create a deliverable. Now we are expected to lead and motivate a group of employees towards a common goal. Sure, we may get paid more to do the job, but the only training we may get for the task is in the school of hard knocks. The major problem when we start to manage is that we do not actually think about management issues; because we do not recognise them. Things normally go wrong because we have never thought about it. Management is about pausing to ask ourselves the right questions so that our common sense can provide the answers. When we become a manager, we gain control over some our own work. We can change things. We can do things differently. We actually have the authority to make a huge impact upon the way in which our staff works. We can shape your own work environment. The work of a manager encompasses a variety of activities and behaviours. While every management role is different, there is generally a core group of behaviours that defines what it means to be a manager. To be effective, the manager must achieve mastery over these behaviours through a continual process of on-the- job application and professional development. The extent to which a manager is required to engage in any one of these behaviours at any time will depend upon the level of responsibility and authority the manager has within the organisation, as well as the nature and duties of his or her management role. These behaviours are not innate and no manager can be expected to have achieved absolute mastery over all them even after years of experience. The process of individual growth and development never ends. But each manager, and particularly the manager who is newer to the field of supervision, must identify those behaviours over which she has achieved some command and those behaviours she must continue to develop to meet the needs of her current role and/or to advance to the next opportunity.

Self-assessment

Whether you are in transition, considering a career or job change, or simply exploring your options, it is a good idea to conduct a self-assessment. This is a process of identifying your interests, skills, values, and personality preferences in order to make an informed career decision. Managers (or managers-to-be) can easily discover how to become good managers by following the recommendations in the sections that follow. No one way is absolutely right or absolutely wrong; each has its pluses and minuses. The assessment is an extensive but not exhaustive inventory of skills you may need, in varying degrees, in your position as a supervisor. Skill attainment is a lifelong process. The following assessment will give you a snapshot of where you are today.

Know your strengths and weaknesses

Self-monitor your behaviour and its outcomes. Be receptive to feedback. Take advantage of assessment opportunities through training, mentoring and coaching, and self-assessment tools. Learn about the key traits and skills necessary for the type of managerial position you hold or aspire.

Develop relevant skills that are deficient Once you’ve identified skills that need to be developed, seek opportunities for additional training and coaching. Seek diverse assignments which will challenge you and help you develop new skills.

Compensate for weaknesses While development of many of the skills and competencies needed for success in a position will depend on the individual’s prior experience and background as well as training on the job, participating in the appropriate training programs can provide structure and support to the process.

Benefits Fulfilling career growth Job satisfaction/achievement More responsibilities/prestigious job Higher income/financial security

Role of a manager

Becoming a successful manager requires that you help your employees shift from an individual mindset to thinking and operating as part of a high functioning team. One of the most cited characteristics of successful managers is that of vision. Of all the concepts in modern management, this is the one about which the most has been written. The meaning of vision which concerns you as a manager is: a vivid idea of what the future should be. This has nothing to do with prediction but everything to do with hope. It is a focus for the team’s activity, which provides sustained, long- term motivation and which unites your team. A vision has to be something sufficiently exciting to bind your team with you in common purpose. This implies two things: 1) you need to decide where your team is headed and 2) you have to communicate that vision to them.

Competencies

Role model demonstrate high moral standards High moral standards frequently distinguish effective leaders from manipulative, scare-crow- type leaders who tend to use flattery, compliance, confrontation, indirect threats, and positions to manipulate subordinates.

Positive attitude Attitude, simply put, is the way you look at things mentally. Attitude is never static and is about making right choices. A positive attitude provides courage to gain control over situations no matter how tough they are.

Inspire others

Effective leaders exude personal influence and are able to inspire—not demand—the respect and loyalty of others. They understand that all people want to be successful at what they do, and thus encourage others to do their best, and as much as possible, actually show them how. They realise that to breed success in others, ultimately breeds success for their company.

Keep up-to-date

Effective leaders refine and hone their understandings and skills by constantly reading up on current literature in their field. They also keep close to the pulse of their company by staying in daily contact with supervisors, employees and customers.

Never abuse power

Effective leaders know that the corrupt use of power creates a vile corporate poison that can quickly spread throughout an entire organisation and paralyse it. They also realise how little courage it takes to criticise the decisions of subordinates rather than stand by the ones own. Effective managers thus practice humility and refrain from using their position to intimidate others.

Adapt your leadership style to suit a variety of situations

Effective leaders can define and manage each situation or person with an appropriate leadership style. For example, they tend to treat their vice- presidents and line workers with the same level of respect, but through different approaches.

Stay focused

Effective leaders choose a priority and clearly, repeatedly, religiously, urgently, attentively, and passionately focus all their discussion and energy on that priority. They realise that focus is critical to decisiveness, and that without it, they would lose the sup- their workers in challenging situations

Stick up for others

Effective leaders exude a feeling of mutual respect and never let their followers feel degraded or worthless. Because of this, many of their workers feel, “Since the boss goes to bat for me, I’ll go to bat for him.”

Take action

When faced with a crisis, effective leaders don’t just sit around and twiddle their thumbs. They solve the problem themselves or get someone who can.

Assertiveness

Learn about the difference between aggressive, assertive and passive communication styles. Discover how communicating in an assertive way can help you to get more of what you want and lead to better decision-making and at the same time build relationships with others. Find out about steps you can take to improve your assertiveness.

Understand the penalty of leadership

Effective leaders understand the pressures of being first and know how to handle it once they get there. In every field of human endeavour, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. Use your imagination to solve problems. The ability of a leader to lead depends highly on the respect subordinates have for their leader’s ability to originate ideas, suggest solutions to problems, and above all, translate visions into far- reaching goals. In other words, the substance of business — making products and going to market — and the art of leadership is imagination.

Flexibility

One of the main challenges in management is in avoiding pat answers to everyday questions. There is nothing so dull, for you and your team, as you pulling out the same answer to every situation. It is also wrong. Each situation, and each person, is unique and no text-book answer will be able to embrace that uniqueness - except one: you are the manager, you have to judge each situation with a fresh eye, and you have to create the response. Your common sense and experience are your best guide in analysing the problem and in evolving your response. This deliberate flexibility is not just an academic exercise to find the best answer. The point is that the situation and the environment are continually changing; and the rate of change is generally increasing with advancing technology. If you do not continually adapt (through experimentation) to accommodate these changes, then the solution which used to work (and which you still habitually apply) will no longer be appropriate. You will become the dodo. A lack of flexibility will cause stagnation and inertia. Not only do you not adapt, but the whole excitement of your work and your team diminish as fresh ideas are lacking or lost.

Work hard

Effective leaders realise that success in their organisation will depend largely upon their own sustained willingness to work hard. They know that sweat rules over inspiration.

Professionalism in the workplace and Beyond

The difference between a worker and a professional is a combination of personal confidence, polished skills, and a “big picture” perspective, rather than a task-oriented approach to each day’s work.

Other factors

Level of Motivation, Proactive approach, Initiative, Self Esteem, Willingness to learn, Humility, Confidence, Character, Accepts responsibility

Managing work

As a manager, you can’t do everything required by your organisation or program. In large part, you must learn to do your job by getting your members/volunteers and agency partners to do the work. You are not expected to know all the answers, but you should learn where in your team, organisation, or community you can go to find them.

Plan and organise

A Manager has to take a long-term view; indeed, the higher you rise, the further you will have to look. While a team member will be working towards known and established goals, the manager must look further ahead so that these goals are selected wisely. By thinking about the eventual consequences of different plans, the manager selects the optimal plan for the team and implements it. By taking account of the needs not only of the next project but the project after that, the manager ensures that work is not repeated nor problems tackled too late, and that the necessary resources are allocated and arranged.

Informing roles and responsibilities

The responsibility of manager is to make role and responsibilities of each team member clear and known to everyone to avoid any ambiguity and to help maintain healthy work environment.

Time and priority management

You have as much time as you’re going to get. The solution isn’t the need for more time or to work harder. It’s effectively managing your time by managing events, setting goals, and prioritising. The more effective you are at managing time means the more effective you’ll be at managing people. This session will examine strategies for increasing productivity, controlling your schedule, and eliminating time wasters and distractions.

Information handling

The Manager has access to information and materials which the team needs. Often he/she has the authority or influence to acquire things which no one else in the team could. This role for the manager is important simply because no one else can do the job; there is some authority which the manager holds uniquely within the team, and the manager must exercise this to help the team to work.

Technical skill

The technical skill implies an understanding of and proficiency in a specific kind of activity, particularly one involving methods, processes, procedures, or techniques; it involves specialised knowledge, analytical ability within that specialty, and facility in the use of the tools and techniques of the specific discipline. Vocational and on-the- job training programmes largely do a good job in developing this skill.

Managing people

A manager’s real job is to inspire employees to do their best and establish a working environment that allows them to reach their goals. The best managers make every possible effort to remove the organisational obstacles that prevent employees from doing their jobs and to obtain the resources and training that employees need to do their jobs effectively. Management is an attitude — a way of life. Management is a very real desire to work with people and help them succeed, as well as a desire to help your organisation succeed. Management is a people job. If you’re not up to the task of working with people — helping them, listening to them, encouraging them, and guiding them — then you shouldn’t be a manager. Because management is such a challenge, an entire management training industry has sprung up, ready to help managers find out how to solve their problems. Unfortunately, trainers often focus on creating instant gratification among course attendees, many of whom have spent hundreds and even thousands of dollars to be there. “Let’s give them so much stuff to use that it will be their fault if they never use any of it!” Perhaps you’re familiar with this old saying (attributed to Lao Tze): Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day, Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime. Such is the nature of managing employees. If you make all the decisions, do the work that your employees are able to do given the chance, and try to carry the entire organisation on your own shoulders, you’re harming your employees and your organisation far more than you can imagine. Your employees never find out how to succeed on their own, and after a while, they quit trying. In your sincere efforts to bring success to your organisation, you stunt the growth of your employees and make your organisation less effective and vital.

Delegation

Delegation is about teaching people to perform and about managing your time in order to have time for those top priority items. Participants will learn the critical components of effective delegation, what to delegate and what not to delegate, helpful hints to give others the authority to perform a task and not simply the responsibility to perform the task, the link between time management and delegation, and a simple yet comprehensive process for effective delegation. Despite rumours to the contrary, when you empower your employees, you do not stop managing. What changes is the way you manage. Managers still provide vision, establish organisational goals, and determine shared values. However, managers must establish a corporate infrastructure — skills training, teams, and so on — that supports empowerment. The key to creating a supportive environment is establishing trust or openness throughout an organisation. In an open environment, employees can bring up questions and concerns.

Protector

The team needs security from the vagaries of less enlightened managers. In any company, there are short-term excitements which can deflect the work-force from the important issues. The manager should be there to guard against these and to protect the team. If a new project emerges which is to be given to your team, you are responsible for costing it (especially in terms of time) so that your team is not given an impossible deadline. If someone in your team brings forward a good plan, you must ensure that it receives a fair hearing and that your team knows and understands the outcome. If someone is in your team has a problem at work, you have to deal with it.

Achievement

As the manager, you set the targets - and in selecting these targets, you have a dramatic effect upon your team’s sense of achievement. If you make them too hard, the team will feel failure; if too easy, the team feels little. Ideally, you should provide a series of targets which are easily recognised as stages towards the ultimate completion of the task. Thus progress is punctuated and celebrated with small but marked achievements. If you stretch your staff, they know you know they can meet that challenge.

Recognition

Recognition is about feeling appreciated. It is knowing that what you do is seen and noted, and preferably by the whole team as well as by you, the manager. In opposite terms, if people do something well and then feel it is ignored - they will not bother to do it so well next time (because “no one cares”). The feedback you give your team about their work is fundamental to their motivation. They should know what they do well (be positive), what needs improving (be constructive) and what is expected of them in the future (something to aim at). And while this is common sense, ask yourself how many on your team know these things, right now? Perhaps more importantly, for which of your team could you write these down now (try it)? Your staff need to know where they stand, and how they are performing against your (reasonable) expectations. You can achieve this through a structured review system, but such systems often become banal formalities with little or no communication. The best time to give feedback is when the event occurs. Since it can impact greatly, the feedback should be honest, simple, and always constructive. If in doubt, follow the simple formula of: - highlight something good, - point out what needs improving, - suggest how to improve You must always look for something positive to say, if only to offer some recognition of the effort which has been put into the work. When talking about improvements, be specific: this is what is wrong, this is what I want/need, this is how you should work towards it. Never say anything as unhelpful or uninformative as “do better” or “shape up” - if you cannot be specific and say how, then keep quiet. While your team will soon realise that this IS a formula, they will still enjoy the benefits of the information (and training). You must not stint in praising good work. If you do not acknowledge it, it may not be repeated simply because no one knew you approved.

Coaching

This session promotes the need for supervisors to adopt a more coaching style of leadership, explores the reasons for this change, defines this style of leadership, and focuses on ways to become a successful “coach.”

SOFT SKILLS

Communication

Without a doubt, communication is the life blood of any organisation, and managers are the common element that connects different levels of employees with one another. Communication has positive effects on a business and its employees of managers who communicate, and the negative effects on a business and its employees of managers who don’t. Managers who don’t communicate effectively are missing out on a vital role of management. Communication is a key function for managers today. Information is power, and as the speed of business accelerates, information must be communicated to employees faster than ever. Constant change and increasing turbulence in the business environment necessitate more communication, not less.

Leadership

You do not have the power to execute, nor even to banish. The workforce is rapidly gaining in sophistication as the world grows more complex. You cannot effectively control through fear, so you must try another route. You could possibly gain compliance and rule your team through edict; but you would lose their input and experience, and gain only the burdens of greater decision making. You do not have the right environment to be a despot; you gain advantage by being a team leader. A common mistake about the image of a manager is that they must be loud, flamboyant, and a great drinker or golfer or racket player or a great something social to draw people to them. This is wrong. In any company, if you look hard enough, you will find quiet modest people who manager teams with great personal success. If you are quiet and modest, fear not; all you need is to talk clearly to the people who matter (your team) and they will hear you. The great managers are the ones who challenge the existing complacency and who are prepared to lead their teams forward towards a personal vision. They are the ones who recognise problems, seize opportunities, and create their own future. Ultimately, they are the ones who stop to think where they want to go and then have the shameless audacity to set out.

Team work

No man is an island. Teamwork is an essential operational tool that is now more crucial to producing results than ever before. As organisations within the public and private sectors continue to restructure in favour of work teams, teams are being used more than ever as an effective and beneficial method of managing employees and doing business. This leads to more attention and resources being allocated to the development and leadership of teams. As the focus tightens on teams, team-building activities and leadership processes are gaining momentum as vital management activities. Consequently, team leaders and managers must stay on top of the latest in team training and development to leverage this increase in opportunities and responsibilities. Within most organisations, team excellence is an absolute prerequisite to organisational excellence, since much of the day-to-day work is accomplished at the team level. Organisational excellence can only be defined in the context of individual excellence and team excellence. Team building is the process of leading an average, or even inferior, team into the realm of high performance. It is a systematic way to enhance a group’s ability to execute and achieve at consistently high levels. Using team building techniques, an effective team leader can guide his team from mediocrity to excellence in teamwork. For a tangible depiction of the range of teamwork, it is helpful to lay out a teamwork continuum. In this example, the negative end of the continuum is defined as mediocrity in teamwork and the positive end as high- performance teamwork. The challenge for every team is to improve their ability to function at the positive end of the continuum, and to continuously accomplish higher and higher levels of performance. To do this, every member of the team must strive to continually improve their team skills and their ability to add to the whole of the group. Change is usually inconvenient and often uncomfortable. But a forward thinking leader will embrace change as a path to an increasingly higher functioning team.

Conflict resolution

One advantage a team has over an individual is diversity of knowledge and ideas. However, with diversity comes differences, and differences can lead to conflict. A substantial amount of a manager’s time is spent dealing with conflict, ranging from unhappy clients and disgruntled employees to daily disagreements and tensions. Although most managers are aware of and have received conflict-resolution training, they fail to give sufficient priority to resolving conflicts. Conflict arises from differences in opinions, backgrounds, values, attitudes and experiences. Destructive conflict often stems from factors such as poor planning, faulty communication, vague objectives and expectations, a climate of distrust or disrespect within a team, undue pressure to meet deadlines, budgets or responsibilities, personality conflicts, resentment and competition. In order to deal with conflict effectively, you’ll need to understand the causes of conflict and the impact of conflict on individuals and on the team as a whole. As team leader, you must recognise conditions for potential conflict, try to derail conflicts before they escalate, and manage situations when and if they arise.

Feedback/performance evaluation 360 degree

An important step is finding out whether our perceptions about our self is consistent with what our supervisor, peers, clients or people who work with us have to say regarding our competencies, behavior, improvements by adopting new skills from our learning plan. The people that we choose to give us feedback should know us well enough to be able to provide us with relevant feedback. We may choose people like our supervisor who has observed a broad range of our behaviour and skills, or we may approach someone we have worked with on a narrower scope who can provide feedback on one or two competency areas. We may receive more effective feedback if we gather the data on a confidential basis.

SHARPEN THE SAW

It is the responsibility of each one of us to develop a habit of continuous learning and updating with the developments in the area of our work. This keeps us prepared for the upcoming new challenges and enhances our ability to deal with them.